I'll throw in for Saga Edition. More refined than the d20 system while retaining a similar mechanical feel. Talents were an good way of increasing variety in your base classes and made for some fun combinations. It had a closer setting feel to the prequels and EU than it did the OG trilogy (WEG was better for the latter).

It had the inherent balance issues of d20, but you know that going in. I had a character who at 10th level was capable of punching through starship hulls at the effective strength of a lightsaber while barehanded. And that's f*** awesome, I don't care what it says about the system."

The URL is a post of the preferred incarnations of Star Wars Role-playing Games. An interesting read!!!

No way!!! In one of my other games I play a 13th level brawler that specializes in unarmed damage. I'm at max rolling 4d12+15 if I can catch an enemy flat footed. Like you said, given that a lightsaber is 2d10, that's not too shabby.

So, it just goes to show you, if you think that the martial arts in Rules of Engagement are broken... just you roll up a good brawler in SAGA and see what you think. ___________________________________________________
Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

It had the inherent balance issues of d20, but you know that going in. I had a character who at 10th level was capable of punching through starship hulls at the effective strength of a lightsaber while barehanded. And that's f*** awesome, I don't care what it says about the system."

No way!!! In one of my other games I play a 13th level brawler that specializes in unarmed damage. I'm at max rolling 4d12+15 if I can catch an enemy flat footed. Like you said, given that a lightsaber is 2d10, that's not too shabby.

So, it just goes to show you, if you think that the martial arts in Rules of Engagement are broken... just you roll up a good brawler in SAGA and see what you think.

d20 does have some really weird quirks when it comes to unarmed damage. I have trouble suspending disbelief in how they interpret martial arts/brawling. In D&D 3.0, the monk's damage progressed with his level, maxing out at 1d20, while a greatsword (the most powerful melee weapon) does 2d6. In 3.5 they upgraded the monk's max damage to 4d6 (I suppose to flatten out the probability curve when rolling damage), which makes it objectively twice as deadly as a greatsword.

Then, they went completely the other way in d20 RCR and made martial arts "mastery" require way more feats than any character (other than a soldier) could ever hope to get (even by 20th level, let alone the fact that campaigns usually don't even progress that far). Though the damage was much more proportionate in light of actual weapons (maxing out at 3d4, or 4d4 if you could fully master Teras Kasi), with the strongest melee weapon having a base damage of 2d10 (the vibro-axe), and the lightsaber's damage being undoubtedly inspired by D6's LSC, whereby a Jedi's lightsaber damage increases by an additional 1d8 every so many levels. Depending on your "build" there is potential for a single hit with a lightsaber to deal 9d8 damage, with most dedicated saber fighters able to hit 7d8 by 20th level.

It seems that SAGA has gone even farther than D&D with the unarmed damage and made it completely nonsensical. But, if it's fun, then it serves its purpose... if you're playing Goku, I suppose.

in SWd20 rule book, i do not remember exactly which, there was a rule of so called "innefective weapons". You cannon cut a rope by attacking it with a club, no matter the damage. I guess sth similar is applied when a character attempts to beat the blast doors or starship hull with bare hands, no matter the martial arts, feats and specialisations. Damage increase with level is not a Dragon Ball style, but rather a precsion in hitting a vurnerable locations._________________Don’t Let the Rules Get in the Way of a Good Story.

It was a joke. And when a punch deals an average of 5 to 6 times the damage of a lightsaber, its no longer "precision" based damage (lightsabers, blaters, etc can be used with precision as well, but they don't get a bonus for it), but rather fantasy chop-saki ougi secret technique anime type stuff.

Yeah, I don't think that any of us were actually trying to do unarmed damage to hard targets. And you kind of have to build for it. By contrast, most people are building for additional damage in their blasters and lightsabers. It doesn't modify the weapon, but you can take feats and talents that will grant you a +1 here and a +2 there if you meet certain conditions. So, you can do more damage with lightsabers and blasters, but while you're taking those feats, my character is taking the unarmed feats.___________________________________________________
Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

Exactly. I remember reading an article about SAGA edition wherein the designers mentioned that a soldier was intended to be more "powerful" in combat than a Jedi. And while I "get it," it sort of just flies in the face of the concept laid out by the films. WotC's explanation was that HEROES are powerful, and Jedi are heros, and so that is why they are more powerful than other characters on screen. But the flaw in their logic, IMO, is revealed by the fact that only a Jedi had any chance at defeating Darth Vader, despite the fact that Han, Chewie, and Leia were also heroes.

I will probably never understand why WotC did unarmed damage like they did, and then still bothered to have "monk weapons" which can be used with all the monk special abilities EXCEPT the extra damage (meaning a monk who uses nunchucks always does 1d6 damage, but his punch does up to 4d6).

Yeah, that was a design choice that not everyone liked about SAGA. It was no secret that in D6 the Jedi will start slower than, then eventually outstrip all non-Force users in the party. SAGA pretty much designed things that if you were a Jedi, you start competent enough with a lightsaber at Level 1 that you wouldn't clobber yourself with it. And they did things to let every class shine, but that every class had an equal crack at being a reasonably contributing party member.

Does that really represent what happened on screen? Well... no. But I get why someone would look for that in a game.

My bigger criticism for the system is that it played very much like a tactical combat RPG better than anything else with the Star Wars name on it. Again, if that's the kind of game you're after, then it should be your go-to. But personally I like the cinematic, broad brush strokes style of D6 for games that I'm running.___________________________________________________
Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

Exactly. I remember reading an article about SAGA edition wherein the designers mentioned that a soldier was intended to be more "powerful" in combat than a Jedi.

Yes. The WotC's DnD balanced class approach. Jedi class had limited Force use like wizards and force powers were much more scaled down in comparison to D6. Still Saga was not so much restrictive for Force using like d20RCR where Jedi using the Force were paying for it with their health. I guess there was ever present medical droid during younglings' trainings.
_________________Don’t Let the Rules Get in the Way of a Good Story.

They way I remember it, the DM would never let you find an experienced Jedi to learn from, a requirement for raising force skills as I recall. Or maybe that's just how we ran it.

I never allowed my players to find some experienced enough to make it easy to learn force powers. The always went through nine kinds of hoops finding someone just a little bit more powerful to learn from and then it never helped them much at all.

Yeah, that was a design choice that not everyone liked about SAGA. It was no secret that in D6 the Jedi will start slower than, then eventually outstrip all non-Force users in the party.

They way I remember it, the DM would never let you find an experienced Jedi to learn from, a requirement for raising force skills as I recall. Or maybe that's just how we ran it.

No, the trick was, if you were improving your skills without a teacher, it cost you double CPs to improve. So it could be done, but you burned a lot of CP doing it. In all fairness, it made for a good leash on Force-sensitive PCs._________________"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

That sonds right, I mostly played the miniatures game anyways. Again, maybe it was just us but... even if you could learn without a teacher, a campaign never followed a force user long enough for their 1D skill level to improve enough to give them good odds of passing any tests. In retrospect it was like their pathetic force-weakness was why they survived the jedi-hunting. Most people burned up a lot of character points on surviving the games and had little left for skill improvement, neither force skills or regular.

Jedi are so nerfed by RAW, we really should be buffing them in the early game, and then slowing them down mid game, rather than making them slog their way up to "advanced level padawan" and never really be capable of any of the things we actually get to see Jedi do in the films.

Jedi are so nerfed by RAW, we really should be buffing them in the early game, and then slowing them down mid game, rather than making them slog their way up to "advanced level padawan" and never really be capable of any of the things we actually get to see Jedi do in the films.

I agree. It's not only that Force skill start so weak, but Force skills coming out of attribute dice make Force characters suck at almost everything else.

In the system I am working on now, Force characters have an early boost by Control and Sense skills being normal skill dice instead of attribute dice, and having a Force attribute that Sense and Control both default to. Alter is an advanced skill (with a few low prerequisites) but still uses skill dice not attribute dice. So in my game a PC could start with all three Force skills (if they have the prerequisites for Alter), and still have up to 17D in normal attributes plus some skill dice left over for non-Jedi stuff. I'm leaning towards a single-roll power list which eliminates some MAPs or time to activate powers too.

Limiting Force characters from becoming too powerful too fast is easy by limiting teacher availability and skill. In my SWU Obi-Wan and Yoda are the only Jedi Masters left after the Purge, so the most powerful Force users still out there are Knights but they are few and far between. There are a handful of padawans and non-Jedi Force users which make up a Force PCs early teachers. So it makes sense to me to let Force characters be better right off the bat because it is easy to not let them steal the show later.

However I don't like Force PCs starting with a lightsaber because I like them having to go on a quest to earn it. But this allows them to get even more skilled for when they do get it._________________*
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